Today I had to spend a lot of hours at a nearby nationally renowned teaching hospital. I’m fine, I was there to be with someone I love (who is also fine, more or less).
I had to pass through the lobby several times on various missions and each time was greeted by the clanking, dinging, rattling, clattering racket of a misbegotten piece of art. The hospital includes a children’s hospital and this Rube Goldberg thing is in the part of the lobby that goes with the children’s hospital but can be heard from all parts.
I did actually see some children who seemed to be enjoying it, but their fleeting pleasure can in no way make up for how colossally annoying and loud this thing is.
I wasn’t sick, I hadn’t lost a night of sleep or even gone without a shower and yet this din made me want to murder. I cannot see how anyone ever thought this would be appropriate for a place filled with people who are already on their last nerve.
This is what it looks like only it’s bigger than that picture makes it seem and much much louder than the picture.
I am surrounded by wind chimes. I feel your pain. There is a special place of 24/7 torture for the inventor of wind chimes. I’m working on a suitable punishment for my neighbors and their blasted noise makers.
I had a similar feeling about the music and art at my last psychologist’s office. It was supposed to be soft, soothing meditation music paired with tonal watercolor abstracts that somewhat resembled fog or water. But as I sat there waiting, all I could think of was how awfully depressing it was! Thank goodness I wasn’t suicidal! Who chooses this stuff?
A friend of mine recently changed planes in Detroit, and reports that they have a tunnel between concourses which on the day of her visit was dimly lit with imitation thunderstorms.
Given that there were real thunderstorms outside, and given that she was already stressed out (unplanned travel due to family health crisis), she was not happy, and wasn’t sure what the designer was thinking.
I don’t know if you happen to be talking about Akron Children’s Hospital or if this sort of thing is becomming commonplace in children’s hospitals around the country but…
A couple weeks ago at a garage sale this woman started randomly talking to me about this art piece at Akron Children’s Hospital and how wonderful it was. Ok, not totally randomly - she was buying a baby’s bead maze and it reminded her of the thing at the hospital. I don’t know what took her to the hospital, but she appreciated it at least…
A hospital near here has a huge cage of birds that seem to do nothing but sit motionlessly and SQUAWK! all day. It’s near SQUAWK! the elevators that go to the childrens’ SQUAWK! AWK! wing, (ooh, a pun, perhaps?) so there seems to be a pattern of AWK! AWK! noisy things at hospitals.
I think that’s marginally better than a picture in my former psychiatrist’s office. For 45 minutes I (atheist) had to stare at the image of Christ on one side of a desk and a man in a suit on the other side. I still don’t know who was consulting whom.
The tunnel I went through in the Detroit airport looked like a psychedelic nightmare. My flight was late and I was rushing down the moving walkways through this acid trip of a tunnel - made me quite giddy.
You mean it didn’t calm your travel-induced stress and make you feel at one with the universe (I had the sense that’s what they were intending)?
I would like to [del]strangle[/del] have strong words with whoever thought it would be a good idea to broadcast 20 seconds of a cute tinkly version of Brahms’ lullaby over the hospital P.A. system every freaking time someone gives birth in Labor & Delivery. Over the course of a workday that’s a lot of Brahms’ Lullaby. I sort of used to like that tune, now it induces nausea.
I’ve always felt pity for folks who work in the grocery stores…dink…dink…dink…dink…dink…dink…dink…dink…dink…dink…dink…
OMG I would have to smash something!
I know the tunnel you’re talking about. I love it. Here’s one of many videos of it. I think I actually like it better than the United Airlines walkway in O’Hare, another quite trippy airport experience. I’d love to experience a thunderstorm version of it (but, then again, I find thunderstorms soothing.)
